Yes, it’s taking forever to get the donor copies of The Unwelcome Warlock out. I apologize. I can report some definite progress now, though — I’ve seen and approved the cover art and the final page proofs, so the book should be going to press Tuesday or so. It’ll still take time to print, pack and ship the books, so I won’t be mailing them all that soon, but the ball’s rolling.

As for other Ethshar projects, let’s see…

Tales of Ethshar, collecting all the short Ethshar fiction, is under contract and Wildside has paid me the advance, but I don’t have a publication date.

More or less the same is true for Ithanalin’s Restoration — Tor has relinquished all rights, it’s under contract to Wildside for a new edition in both trade paperback and e-book form, I’ve been paid, but I don’t have a pub date.

I’ve promised to start another Ethshar serial this year — that is, no later than December 31, 2012 — but there’s no definite date, and I’m not entirely sure which story it will be. Probably The Sorcerer’s Widow. Which, incidentally, will probably be quite short.

I’ve previously mentioned Azraya of Ethshar and Ishta’s Playmate as other possibilities, and they’re still on the list, but I’ve also begun working up a very large, complicated project with the working title “Big Fat Ethshar Novel” that combines several of the projects on my “planned stories” list. That may be too ambitious for this year, though.

I think that’s everything, really. Oh, except to brag that my daughter’s doing a webcomic — it’s called Misguided Light.